Meredith May recalls the first time a honeybee crawled on her arm.
She was five years old, her parents had recently split and suddenly she found herself in the care of her grandfather, an eccentric beekeeper who made honey in a rusty old military bus in the yard.
That first close encounter with a bee was at once terrifying and exhilarating for May, and in that moment she discovered that everything she needed to know about life and family was right before her eyes, in the secret world of bees.
May was drawn to the art of beekeeping as an escape from her troubled reality.
Her mother had receded into a volatile cycle of madness and despair and spent most days locked away in the bedroom. It was during this pivotal time in May’s childhood that she learned to take care of herself, forged an unbreakable bond with her grandfather and opened her eyes to the magic and wisdom of nature.
The bees became a guiding force in May’s life, teaching her about family and community, loyalty and survival and the unequivocal relationship between a mother and her child.
Part memoir, part beekeeping odyssey, The Honey Bus is an remarkable story about finding home in the most unusual of places, and how a tiny, little-understood insect could save a life.
318 pages (April 2019)
Reading Guide from BookMovement.
Discussion Guide from Meredith May's website
Discussion Guide from Meredith May's website
To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's
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Book Trailer:
Meredith May Interview:
This title is available for download as an eBook and as an eAudioBook. Learn more about downloadables from the library here.
Title Read-alikes: A Honeybee Heart Has Five Openings by Helen Jukes; How to Be a Good Creature by Sy Montgomery; H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald; Field Notes from an Unintentional Birder by Julia Zarankin; My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout; Fire Season by Philip Connors; The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Bailey; Wintering by Katherine May; Late Migrations by Margaret Renkl; The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson; This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger; and Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler.
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